Comforts of a Storyteller
by Experiment X4d2
Summary: After her mother's death, Hawke sits on the edge of the abyss. Can the infamous storyteller that is her best friend keep her from falling? [Artwork by Aimo.]


**_'_** ** _I love you. You've always made me so proud.'_**

 ** _'_** ** _So you're to blame?! If you'd have been quicker, or stronger, you could've… she could be…'_**

Eve had fallen on Kirkwall, the days events still heavy on her shoulders. On her mind.

Misrann sat on the side of her bed, starring down into the nothingness that lay between her feet. Her friends and allies had done their best to aid her through it, yet none would split through the shadows that lay siege in her head.

Everyone who would come to her. To offer their condolences, their words, their aid; she would pass. Turning them away.

Each of them would accept her wishes and turn away, leaving the Hawke estate to another bout of quiet loneliness. Anders. Fenris. Isabela, Merill. She had turned them all away.

Her charcoal hair sat flowing dusted infront of her face, flat and shaggy from the day and her own grief. Her once shining, though admittedly "tired looking" Emerald eyes, that had stirred the heart of her fair Merill, gazed cold and dead, bloodshot into the floor.

Merill particularly wished to help her love. Elven words, spun softly as the dainty girl wandered towards her side. Words that should have comforted Misrann, yet only served to reignite her.

A raw anger, a dark passionate fury that she somehow managed to sustain, her eyes burning, hands glimmering with power as she yelled out.

—

"I heard the news…" Merill's soft voice quaked as she entered the room.

Her neck cricked as Misrann turned her head towards the Elf, as if unturned in days.

"Ir abelas, ma vhenan."

Words she didn't understand. Words foreign, that angered the normally fun-filled Hawke. "I don't speak Elven, Merill."

"I am filled with sorrow. For your loss." The translation came, the elven girl approaching Misrann with hopeful eyes. "Leandra is in a better place now…"

A calm person would accept the fate. A Wise person would question the magic responsible.

But Misrann was not these people right now.

She was angry.

With Merill. With Gamlen. With Quentin.

But mostly with herself.

But the words. All of the words. Spinning through her head. They were tipping her over a threshold she did not want to pass. But she could not stop it. She glared up at the Elven girl, forcing herself to a stand and closed the gap between them.

"A better place? A better place?! Mother shouldn't BE in some 'Better Place'! She should be here!"

"I-i - I-I'm s-sorry… I only meant…" She quivered, Misrann's form sharply forcing the girl backwards with each powerful step.

"Meant what?! To say that she's with the Maker?!"

"O…or Falon'din…"

"I DON'T GIVE A FUCK MERILL!" She bellowed, fire roaring about her fists, her eyes. "Mother is DEAD! She's dead, I fucked it up! What else was there to say?!"

Her elven lover could only shudder as she sprinted for the door, tears streaming down her face with a quaking "I'm Sorry!", followed quickly by a door slamming shut.

—

She sighed. She had lost enough this day, and for her own actions, she had threatened… perhaps succeeded, in losing Merill as well.

Bodahn and Sandal had 'requested' that they leave the estate for the night, to leave Hawke to herself. A quick wave was all she offered in return as they left.

Leaving nothing more than the crackling of cinders downstairs, and the occasional snore of the Mabari hound.

No Mother.

No Merill.

No…

One. Door Opening.

The sound perked Misrann's ears, but she did not turn her head. The door shut once more, likely Isabela to steal… something. She would've ignored it, had it not been followed by heavy leathered feet coming up the stairs. They wandered down towards her bedroom, stopping at the doorway. A small, yet clunky shuffle of metal shook behind the person, before a muffled, yet recognisable clunk plopped onto her bedroom floor, beside the door.

Bianca. Sitting against the wall. And its infamous owner leaning against the doorframe. He spoke no words.

The silence cut sharper than anything her other friends had said or done during the course of the night. For she knew the dwarf at her door, and silence was not a song he sang.

Her head turned to him.

A face usually cut with a suave smirk, a cutthroat tongued lie and a story of glory and riches, just looked at her. With a look. A look that many of her friends had given her, yet Varric could just say so much more with it.

It was a look of sympathy. Of wanting to aid someone they cared about. Over the years she had spent in Kirkwall, Varric had easily become Misrann's best friend, and a man whom she would speak to about anything. A man who would repay her the same respect.

When Bartrand went berserk, Varric did not speak much of it. Out loud. The two would play Wicked Grace, over a bottle of something strong. And Misrann could tell from the way he played his hands, held his cards, that he was dealing with thoughts.

She was there for him.

And now he was there for her.

"Daisy's pretty burned out, Hawke. Came running into the Hanged Man, started crying right in the middle of mine and Isabela's game of Wicked Grace. Ruined the table. Took me twenty minutes to convince her not to come down and 'cut your tits off'. I don't think either of us wants that."

"…" Misrann could speak no words. What she had done, said, to Merill, was inexcusable.

"But… neither you, nor her, and in the best of states right now so… that's why they're there, and I'm here."

"I made her cry…"

"I know." Leather against the floor once more, the Dwarf sauntered over to the Mage, leaning once again on the bedpost.

"I'm not here expecting my words to just, magically make you okay. I mean, I'm good, but every good story needs time to tell."

…

Misrann's gaze turned once again to the floor as the silence flooded the room; an entity once thought impossible between the two sarcastic banterers.

"… I was too late…"

"There wasn't a way to be 'on time' to what we saw down there, Missy." Missy. A pet name he'd given her, after stating that she sounded like an Elf had named her. "That goes beyond Blood Magic…"

"I failed…"

"Failed would've been leaving her there with Quentin to do… Maker… I don't wanna think about it… I was there Hawke. I heard what she said to you. She was gone. You saved her from… that. That's not Failure in my books."

"But-…"

"A really good friend of mine once said 'The worst Fuck-Up you can ever make, is thinking bad in a bad situation.' And she's no slouch, she likes her words of Wisdom. Makes her feel important. Like some kinda Sage or some shit."

Misrann breathed the first smiled she had mustered that entire day. If that didn't show how much of friends the two of them were, Maker knows what was.

"You can't keep bad in, in a bad time, Missy. If you're gonna let loose, I'd rather it be on me, not Daisy."

He stepped forward, standing barely half a step infront of where she sat, his bold chest just below level with her chin. She looked up. He still carried a stern look, yet one that only he could offer to her at a time like this. Her bloodshot eyes began to quiver once more, her fists tightening by her sides. Emotions flowing through her that spanned not just today, but years gone by. Events passed that only stacked up, and stacked up, more and more until today came and sent it all exploding over her mind in slates of Fire, and Death. The images, the screams; not of those she had killed, or not even those who could've been saved.

But those who she tried to save.

And failed to.

Their faces. Their voices, whispers bellowing, screams on the winds of the expanse of her own consciousness. With all the death she had wrought, the reaper she had become, three sat at the front of her mind.

Ever burning in. Each rekindling the embers of the last, a never ending cycle.

She could not take it all. Not over the years. And not all at once.

"So let loose."

She screamed. Her fist slammed into his chest, her teeth gritting painfully as she sobbed back as many tears as her body would allow her. Which it would not for long. Quickly, heartbreaking sobbing turned into torrential waves of tears, bleeding down her face as her hair clung to it.

Another fist against his chest, a small grunt the dwarf desperately did his best to mute. She had to express. Everything the girl was holding inside of her, she had been holding for longer than just today; and only Varric and a select few others knew about. But how long would it take to release, everything she had held in.

How long would she scream.

An arm rested against her shoulder as her head leaned into his chest, the pounding of her fists subsiding to a degree he did not feel; whether from her own exhaustion, or her inability to muster the strength to hit him again. He rested his chin on her head, within the scraggy black locks.

"I've… I've lost them all… All o-of them…" She choked. "B-Bethany… I couldn't… even get her h-here…C-Carver died i-in the roads…a-a-and n-now… M-Mother… To a MADMAN!"

Her right fist continued to bang against him every now and then, if only to show that it still had the strength to move; her left tightly gripping onto his coat's arm.

"I lost the-them all!" She sniffled back. "And for WHAT?! T-To save myself… t-to get fucking Treasure… and to t-try and s-save them a-all…"

The pounding of her fist had all but vanished, loosening to an open hand with short nails that dug into his chest with weak depth, yet strong edge, the slightest of cut marks downwards on his chest, five turning to four, turning to none as her hand clasped around her own mouth, choking back a sob harshly, her other hand soon joining it as covered her face with them.

"I tr… tried t-to save them…"

The dwarf's other arm rested on her opposite arm tenderly, bringing his friend into a close embrace. She quaked in his arms, practically shaking with every passing second as she leaned into his chest, gasping deep, sharp pants heavily into her own hands.

"I p-promised I'd… k-keep them safe…"

"I Promised!"

"I know Hawke."

I know.


End file.
